Chapter 48: Extra (1) Part 1

From the moment Bei Huai could remember, she had rarely seen her father.

Her mother was always distant and dismissive toward her, never wanting her to get too close.

The house was enormous, and she often felt profoundly lonely wandering its vast spaces alone.

Then one day, her father returned out of the blue, accompanied by a strikingly beautiful and delicate woman.

Bei Huai ran to him in delight, and for the first time, her usually stern father smiled at her.

“Good girl, call her Auntie Ye.”

Before she could utter a word, her mother yanked her roughly aside.

Her mother’s grip was iron-strong, and Bei Huai’s arm throbbed with pain.

But she didn’t dare cry out, only endured it with quiet grievance.

It was the first time she’d seen her mother erupt in a shouting match with her father right in front of him—the same mother who was always so poised and ladylike in his presence, now unraveling into hysterics.

In the end, all Bei Huai remembered was her father leaving with Auntie Ye, never to return.

From that day forward, her mother transformed into someone entirely different.

Where she had once ignored and neglected her daughter, she now lavished all her attention on Bei Huai.

Little Bei was thrilled at first.

But gradually, this suffocating level of control left her gasping for air.

At the beginning, her mother would coax her into taking ice-cold baths with gentle words.

Shivering uncontrollably and sobbing with pleas, Little Bei begged for mercy.

Her mother merely replied, soft yet merciless: “Good girl, just endure it a little longer.”

That midnight, she spiked a raging fever. In her delirious haze, she saw her mother reach not for the hospital but for the phone, weeping to her father.

Once the call ended, the helpless mask on her mother’s face vanished in an instant.

Bei Huai whimpered in agony.

Her mother patted her head, even with a hint of a smile. “You did wonderfully. Your father will be here soon.”

She felt no joy—only deep grievance and misery.

Sadly, such theatrics lost their appeal with Bei Rong after just a few repetitions.

So, after Bei Qi was born, Yun Manzhu shifted tactics, imposing ruthless demands on Little Bei Huai at every turn.

The slightest misstep earned her beatings or scoldings.

Yet sometimes her mother would turn tender again, weeping in remorse at the sight of the bruises on her skin.

Young Bei Huai was still so obedient back then. She believed it was her own shortcomings that provoked her mother’s rage, so she threw herself into relentless effort. While other children played, she studied; while they slept, she kept at her books.

She spun like a top without cease, yearning only for a single smile from her mother.

Later, she met Cen Jin. Perhaps their similar fractured family backgrounds drew her to the girl.

With Cen Jin’s encouragement, she went home and told her mother, “When I grow up, I can protect you myself. We won’t need Father anymore.”

The response was Yun Manzhu exploding in thunderous fury.

A barrage of merciless rebukes and cutting insults followed.

Bei Huai let her mother lash her with a long ruler, saying nothing.

In her bewilderment, she even wondered if she truly was so worthless.

But then she saw the cold, harsh woman her mother was, her eyes softening with genuine warmth around Bei Rong—and even toward Bei Qi, who shared no blood with her. In that moment, enlightenment dawned.

Her very existence was the original sin.

In this warped and twisted family, she was the superfluous one.

Yun Manzhu loved only Bei Rong, and he cherished only his white moonlight and his son.

And Bei Huai?

No one loved Bei Huai.

She was merely Yun Manzhu’s tool to curry favor with Bei Rong. Even her efforts, her achievements—they were all just to please him.

As for Yun Manzhu herself, she couldn’t have cared less.

In the instant full understanding struck, Bei Huai changed.

She grew world-weary and defiant. She tattooed over the scars on her arms, dressed in outlandish styles, skipped classes, picked fights—from the model student to the delinquent everyone despised.

No one could fathom the anguish and isolation gnawing at her heart. Insecure and starved for love, she armored herself against the world.

A teenager’s rebellion burned fierce and unrelenting. She clashed with her mother without restraint. Whenever Yun Manzhu demanded she placate Bei Rong and make him happy, Bei Huai did the exact opposite.

Bei Rong came to loathe this disgraceful daughter who shamed him, and her mother hated her all the more, beating her with even greater ferocity. Afterward, she would cling to her, sobbing about her own hardships. In the past, Bei Huai would soften and forgive; now, she simply let her mother hold her, her face blank, her eyes like stagnant pools devoid of life.

Bei Huai had been suppressed by her mother for far too long, so she unleashed her wildness all the more fiercely outside. With her brash, ostentatious ways, she masked the desolation and sorrow within.

Later, she enrolled at a university in W City. It wasn’t a top school, but it was far away from Yun Manzhu and the Bei family.

In this new place, she tried to shake off the shadows of her past and make plans for her future.

During her sophomore year, Bei Qi reached out to her. The boy was a high school sophomore, swamped with studies, yet he begged her to take him to the FA E-sports Competition.

The event was being held in W City. Bei Qi didn’t know a soul there except for Bei Huai. It was a long trip to an unfamiliar city, and his family viewed esports as a frivolous waste of time—no one would let him go.

Desperate, he had no choice but to ask Bei Huai for help.

Her half-brother called her “sister” in that soft voice of his, and Bei Huai’s resolve softened. But on the way there, they were struck by a sudden car accident. Bei Qi died at the scene, while Bei Huai suffered severe injuries and barely clung to life.

It was pouring rain that night, the roads dark and slick.

Traffic was backed up for miles. Afraid they’d miss the event, Bei Qi took the advice of a truck driver and pleaded with Bei Huai to take a shortcut through a side road.

But one side of the road bordered a mountainside, which gave way under the torrent of rain. The car was crushed beneath the landslide.

Bei Qi’s mother had been abused by her ex-husband for years and was already in poor health. When she heard the devastating news, she suffered a sudden heart attack and passed away.

Bei Rong, grief-stricken over the loss of his wife and son, came to hate Bei Huai with a burning fury. He even tried to kill her right there in her hospital room.

Bei Huai had just been pulled back from the brink of death and lay weak and helpless in her bed.

The enraged man clamped his hands around her throat. Driven by pure survival instinct, she flailed blindly across the bedside table, grabbing whatever she could and stabbing at him.

His grip loosened, and Bei Huai instinctively shoved him away.

But the man stumbled backward, stiff and unsteady, and cracked the back of his skull against the sharp metal corner of the table. He went limp and unresponsive.

Hearing the commotion, Yun Manzhu burst into the room and screamed at the sight before her.

Only then did Bei Huai realize what she’d grabbed in her panic: a fruit knife, its blade still slick with blood.

Bei Rong was rushed into emergency surgery.

But the efforts were in vain.

Yun Manzhu wept uncontrollably. She kicked and bit at Bei Huai, even calling the police to accuse her of deliberately murdering Bei Rong.

There were no cameras in the hospital room. The blood on the knife was Bei Rong’s, and Bei Huai’s fingerprints were on the handle and his clothing. She had a clear motive, and Yun Manzhu—her own birth mother—identified her as the killer.

All the evidence pointed to Bei Huai as the murderer.

Bei Huai offered no defense. She simply stood there in the defendant’s dock, listening numbly to the judge’s final verdict, her eyes vacant and empty.

Bei Qi was dead. Auntie Ye was dead. Bei Rong was dead.

All of them gone.

She couldn’t understand how things had come to this, and she no longer wanted to try.

Let it be, then.

Some time later, Yun Manzhu regretted it all. She wept as she rushed to the prison, begging to see Bei Huai and promising to help overturn the verdict.

Bei Huai refused and wouldn’t see her.

That was the taste of a heart turned to ash.

~~~

Jiang Wan, an intern in psychological counseling, met her first inmate under her mentor’s supervision: Bei Huai.

The guards warned that the woman’s will to live was fragile. She’d attempted suicide several times in prison, and self-harm had become routine for her.

This was Jiang Wan’s first glimpse of Bei Huai.

One was a counseling intern, the other a prisoner.

She stood quietly to the side, watching as her mentor patiently asked questions.

The woman kept her eyes downcast, her skin ghostly pale under the harsh lights.

She was strikingly beautiful—not in the conventional sense, but with a fierce, aggressive allure. Her gaunt face only sharpened that edge.

She ignored the mentor’s questions entirely.

It wasn’t defiance like with other inmates, but a state of utter detachment, devoid of all desire.

More like the hollow, numb shell of a walking corpse.

Jiang Wan didn’t exchange a single word with Bei Huai during that session, but the lifeless woman left an indelible mark on her.

It was the first time since abandoning her dancing career that Jiang Wan had felt such intense fascination with another person.

Hard to put into words.

Using the excuse of writing a research paper, she began visiting the prison frequently. Little by little, she uncovered the tragic story behind Bei Huai.

Absurd. Heartbreaking.

Her fascination deepened into pity.

Whenever she had the chance, she conducted counseling sessions with Bei Huai.

Unlike her mentor, she didn’t probe with pointed questions. Instead, she simply shared snippets of her daily life and her own struggles.

Bei Huai proved to be the perfect listener.

Gradually, Jiang Wan grew accustomed to letting her true self out in front of Bei Huai.

Her personality had changed drastically after the spinal injury, but to spare her parents and friends from worry, she suppressed it all, pretending to be the same gentle, optimistic girl she’d always been.

But in Bei Huai’s presence, she didn’t need to hold back so much.